A Grid For Murder Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Praise for

  A KILLER COLUMN

  “This is obviously a well-thought-out and -plotted series…A Killer Column is a brainteaser of a mystery.”

  —OnceUponARomance.net

  “A really great mystery. There were plenty of suspects to go around…and I was kept guessing throughout.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  A DEADLY ROW

  “Do the math—this book’s a winner! Make this number one on your must-read list.”

  —Laura Childs, New York Times bestselling author

  “A dazzling debut indeed. Fans of mysteries that make you stop and think will find A Deadly Row the start of a brilliant series.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A Deadly Row is a very different and exciting mystery with a conclusion that will surprise most readers.”

  —Creatures’n Crooks Bookshoppe

  “Fascinating…Character driven with several terrific twists, readers who enjoy mysteries like those of Parnell Hall’s Puzzle Lady will enjoy observing the two Stones methodically work separately and together on their first joint case.”

  —Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine

  “Mayes is quite good at planting clues and red herrings…A Deadly Row is quite a pleasant traditional mystery, with just enough police procedural thrown in to keep it interesting.”

  —ReviewingTheEvidence.com

  “The mystery is engaging and well constructed…A Deadly Row reads a bit like a younger, hipper Carolyn Hart or Nancy Fairbanks novel. It makes a welcome addition to the cozy scene, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for the sequel.”

  —The Season

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Casey Mayes

  A DEADLY ROW

  A KILLER COLUMN

  A GRID FOR MURDER

  A GRID

  FOR MURDER

  Casey Mayes

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  A GRID FOR MURDER

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  publishing history

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Tim Myers.

  Puzzles by the author.

  Cover illustration by Sawsan Chalabi.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

  electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-61155-5

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is

  stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the

  author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Emily Myers,

  and all of the books we’ve shared together over the years!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Asheville, North Carolina, is without a doubt one of my favorite places in the world. It offers beautiful vistas, an eclectic downtown, quirky citizens, and the ambience of what a city should be, at least for me. As always, I’ve taken liberties with some of the locations, distances, and manner in which the police operate, but many of the places I write about, from the obelisk downtown to the Botanical Gardens, are very real indeed, and well worth the visit.

  As always, I hope the people of Asheville forgive me for making murder a resident in their beautiful city.

  Chapter 1

  SHE DESERVED TO DIE.

  If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have, so I don’t feel like a killer. I just saved someone else the trouble of taking care of her. My conscience is clean enough.

  You can’t treat people like that and expect to keep getting away with it.

  I tried telling her that again and again, but she wouldn’t listen to me.

  And then all of a sudden, she ran out of chances.

  The world will be a better place without her.

  If I’m being honest about it, I’m not even sorry for what I did.

  And if that snoopy Savannah Stone doesn’t stop nosing around business that isn’t hers, I’m going to add her to my list.

  It’s got to get easier the more times you do it.

  Chapter 2

  “I’M GOING INTO ASHEVILLE,” I CALLED OUT TO MY HUSBAND, Zach, who was currently picking up fallen branches in our cottage’s front yard and hauling them into the nearby woods. Zach was the retired chief of police of Charlotte, North Carolina, but now he worked as a consultant for any law enforcement agency that had a tough case, and the budget to pay him. My income writing puzzles was a nice supplement to that, and we were fairly comfortable living on what we had, though we weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.

  I loved all of the seasons on our land, but this was my favorite time of year. It was the beginning of the end of autumn, and we’d had a pretty intense storm the night before.

  I looked
at Zach. He wasn’t paying me all that much attention, because he was focused on getting the grounds cleared. That was his style. Whenever he tackled a problem, no matter how large or small, it tended to occupy the whole of his concentration. “Do you need anything while I’m gone?” I asked again, this time loud enough to make it impossible for him to continue ignoring me.

  “Did you say something?” he asked with a grin. It was tough being angry with my husband when he smiled at me like that.

  “Do you need anything from Asheville?”

  “How about grabbing me a new chain saw while you’re there, Savannah?” Zach asked as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, though there was still the hint of a chill in the air. “I think it would be easier if I just go ahead and cut all of our trees down and be done with it once and for all.”

  I knew he was kidding. My husband loved the hickory, oak, maple, and pine forest that populated our property as much as I did. We’d wanted to escape the hectic pace and energy of Charlotte, and I’d dreamed of living in the mountains since I’d been a little girl, so when a bullet in the chest had forced my husband to retire, a place near Asheville was the obvious choice for both of us.

  Not that it didn’t bring its own share of challenges along with it.

  I smiled at him and said, “While we’re at it, why don’t we go ahead and tear up all of the grass and put down artificial turf like they use on football fields? That way there wouldn’t be any yard work to do at all.”

  He took a long drink from the glass of cool water I’d brought him earlier before he spoke again. “You’ve got the right idea. We could even plant plastic fruit and vegetables. Think about it, Savannah; no weeding, no pests, no work.”

  I laughed out loud. “Admit it; you’d go crazy in a week if you didn’t have anything to do outside, and we both know it.”

  He grinned. “You’re right, but sometimes it’s fun to dream about that simpler life we promised ourselves once upon a time.”

  “I like things just the way they are. Don’t work too hard,” I added, my smile suddenly fading for an instant. I knew the doctors had cleared Zach for a moderate amount of strenuous activity, but I still worried about him every time he tried to do too much physical labor.

  He must have seen the concern in my eyes. “Stop worrying about me, Savannah. I’m as healthy as a horse,” he said, and then added, “At least one that’s been shot in the chest.”

  “How healthy would that be, exactly?” I asked.

  “I’m strong enough to do what needs to be done,” he said as he threw a branch onto the pile. Zach reached for another fallen branch and added, “What are you doing racing off into town? Don’t you have a puzzle that’s due today?”

  I loved my job creating the math puzzles that were found in some of the best secondary newspaper markets in the country, but it wasn’t my entire life. There were times when I resented how the puzzle creations could intrude on other things I would rather be doing with my time, but mostly I’d found the ideal occupation for myself. My puzzles offered the perfect opportunity to set order to chaos, and in a way, what Zach and I did wasn’t really all that different. “I already finished it. That’s why I’m going into Asheville. My fax is on the fritz again.”

  “I keep telling you that it’s time to buy a new one.”

  “I’m one step ahead of you. After I send this,” I said, waving the folder containing my latest puzzle and its solution in the air, “I’m going shopping for a new one. If you want to get cleaned up and go with me, I’d be more than happy to wait around for you.” My husband’s consulting business was surprisingly quiet at the moment, and I knew that he was getting restless with the inactivity of his brain, if not his body.

  Zach peered around the yard, and then he shook his head. “It’s tempting, but I really do need to finish this. You know how I get when I start a project.”

  “I know, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask anyway.” I kissed him quickly, and then got into my car and headed for the city. We lived two miles from the center of Parson’s Valley, and less than thirty minutes from downtown Asheville, nestled in the western part of North Carolina. We’d both immediately fallen in love with our cottage the moment we’d seen it, and we’d bought it with plans to retire there someday. That day came much sooner than either one of us had expected, but it was our home now, and I loved it.

  ONCE I GOT INTO ASHEVILLE, I WENT BY MY FAVORITE OFFICE supply store, faxed my puzzle to my syndicator from there, and then indulged myself and bought a brand-new fax machine. Most of my fellow puzzlemakers had switched to computer-generated puzzles long ago, but I had to have the feel of the pencil in my hand and the notepad on my lap to be able to create. My boss had to convert the puzzles into an electronic format before they could go out to our newspaper clients, and I had been hearing rumblings for months about updating our system, but so far, I’d resisted it at every turn. It wasn’t that I was some kind of Luddite—I enjoyed technology as much as the next woman—but it didn’t mesh well with my creativity, at least not my brand of it. In all honesty, my puzzles were only part of the equation of what I gave my readers. Many folks I spoke with told me that it was my accompanying snippet that they enjoyed the most, even surpassing the joy of working a puzzle. A combination of my ruminations, advice, and the occasional diatribe made up the second half of what I loved doing most in the world, and oftentimes I worked as hard on my brief commentaries as I did creating the puzzles they accompanied.

  After I was finished with my errands, I knew that if I rushed back home, Zach would just put me to work with him in the yard. There had to be some way to stall my return until those branches had been transported deep into the woods. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy helping my husband; it was just that we both liked to be in charge of most of the things we did together. I knew from experience that my presence would take away some of his laser focus on getting the job done, and besides, we spent plenty of time together every day without going out of our way to add to it. I decided to treat myself to lunch at Café Noir, a place with outdoor tables near the downtown area of Asheville known as Pack Square. I loved sitting at one of the tables outside and staring up at the gray stone obelisk, a Washington Monument–like structure dedicated to our Civil War–era governor Zebulon Vance. As I sat at a table watching the world go by, no matter what time of year, the range of people there always amazed me. The entire city of Asheville was a study in contrasts, from the nearby Asheville Art Museum to the bohemian coffee shops and galleries strewn throughout the streets. Sitting outside in the sunshine, it was not uncommon to see a bank executive on vacation walking in one direction wearing J.Crew and L.L.Bean passing a genuine tie-dyed hippie in flip-flops and blue jeans coming the other way.

  In other words, if I was going to be close to a city anywhere in America, this was the one I wanted to be able to visit whenever the mood struck me.

  I’d been lucky enough to find a parking spot on Patton Avenue near the café, something not to be taken lightly, and I’d captured a table near the square where I could see just about everything going on around me.

  Unfortunately, two tables away, someone I had no interest in spending a second with saw me as I started to sit down.

  “Savannah. Savannah Stone,” Joanne Clayton called out. Joanne’s olive-skinned face was narrow and elongated, her nose constantly threatening to tip over her entire head; every time I saw her, a fresh-faced ferret popped into my mind: an image that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried to banish it.

  I was trapped. I couldn’t ignore her, and it was too late to pretend that I was heading somewhere else. Maybe there was still a way that I could avoid the inevitable.

  “Hi, Joanne,” I said as I pulled out my chair without making a single move in her direction. “Nice to see you.”

  I pretended to study the menu on the table as I chanted softly to myself, Don’t come over, don’t come over, don’t come over.

  Of course, she came over.

 
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, carrying an oversized coffee cup with her.

  “Of course,” I said.

  There was a sharp look on her face as she asked me pointedly, “Are you truly saying that you do mind? Surely I’m mistaken.”

  That was exactly what I was saying, but I knew if I turned her away, I’d be fodder for the gossip mill in Parson’s Valley until she found a new victim to focus on, and that could take days, or even weeks. Joanne was an uncomfortable acquaintance, but she was an even worse enemy, and I had no desire to go from the nice list to the naughty one.

  “No, I meant that of course you can join me.” As Joanne pulled out a chair and put her bags on the table, I pointed to her cup and asked, “What’s that you’re drinking?”

  “They have the most delicious tea here. This is Daybreak Delight. It’s almost savory in taste. You must try some.”

  I didn’t feel like some strange type of tea brew at the moment, but before I could protest, she waved to a waitress and placed my order for me. Wonderful. I’d hoped to have a nice lunch and enjoy the brisk autumn weather, but Joanne had managed to suddenly kill my appetite. If I could share a cup of tea with her and be done with it, that was going to be my new goal. I’d grab something else on the way home. It served me right, trying to skip out on my husband when there was work to be done back at the cottage. I was a firm believer in Karma, but this payback was so fast it was enough to snap my neck with its suddenness.

  I knew in my heart that I was going to have to endure at least some of her company, so I decided to be as gracious about it as I could be. “What brings you to Asheville this fine autumn day?” I asked as nicely as I could muster.

  “A moment like this is meant to be enjoyed out in civilization,” she said. “And clearly, I’m not the only resident of Parson’s Valley who wanted to get away from our sleepy little town for a few hours.”

  “I had some business to take care of in town,” I said, finding it odd to be justifying my trip into Asheville to this woman. If I had my way, I’d rather be home sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace writing a new snippet with Zach in the next chair nodding off than where I was at the moment.